Category: Tools

As water feature installers, my sons and I are used to hard, dirty, sometimes dangerous work. We enjoy what we do, whether it’s digging ponds, plumbing pumps, rolling boulders or tweaking waterfalls, but we also value anything that helps make the work easier or more fun. We’re always looking for tools, apps or gadgets that save time & effort, eliminate stress, add to our comfort on the job or are just fun to use. Often a buddy will turn us on to one. I’d like to return the favor by passing our favorite Tools That Don’t Suck along to you.

Tirolessa Sprayer

Every now and then a tool comes along that does a job simply and inexpensively, that otherwise would have required a major investment in time, energy and equipment. Typically, these tools are born of necessity, because someone, somewhere doesn’t have access to the technology – or the money – to get the job done any other way. Today’s entry in the TTDS category is that kind of tool.

I ran across the Tirolessa sprayer online a dozen years ago when I was investigating building a dome home. I had this idea about an ecotourism bed-and-breakfast in the mountains of Michoacan, Mexico, where the Monarch butterflies go on their amazing winter migration. I figured I could create really cool, inexpensive and energy-efficient housing modules by covering an inflatable mold with multiple thin layers of fiber-reinforced concrete, building up the layers successively until the structure was strong enough to resist not only weather, but earthquakes too. The trick is to get a thin, strong first layer of concrete without deforming or collapsing the plastic balloon form. After the layers are self-supporting, the form is deflated and the rest of the concrete dome built up by troweling. The Tirolessa sprayer was recommended as the ideal tool to apply those first thin layers.

Well, just about the same time as I was pipe dreaming, I was asked to build caves and huge artificial boulders around a 200-foot-wide pond cover an interior wall with waterfalls. I had just finished plumbing and tweaking a Hawaiian-themed “black lava” waterfall in a restaurant. A Gunite crew had been called in to form the structure out of rebar covered with wire lathe and shot the whole wall with very wet black cement. I bought the Tirolessa thinking it might replace the Gunite crew – and it did. I wasn’t very good at texturing the final product, but there was no doubt about it. This little gadget could really blow some mud.

Yes, blow. The Tirolessa is basically a stainless steel bucket with air holes at the bottom. The handle is a hollow steel tube to which an airhose is attached, with a trigger. Pull the trigger and air blows inside the bucket across the bottom and out the front-facing air holes, carrying a spray of very loose concrete slurry with it. We make a mix of two parts fine sand to one part Portland cement, with enough water to give it a consistency between pea soup and oatmeal. Scoop a bucket of slurry from the wheelbarrow, hold the bucket two feet from the vertical surface to be covered, pull the trigger and spray the slurry. And repeat.

We’ve found the Tirolessa invaluable for getting that first critical layer on difficult vertical surfaces, and that has opened a whole new range of possibilities for us. Now we can easily protect the inside of any EPDM pond without building inner walls. The Tirolessa still can’t make concrete stick to rubber, but it CAN make cement stick to vertical geotextile, no problem at all. We cover our vertical liner walls with a layer of geotextile, well-anchored at the top so it will support the weight of the cement we spray on it until the first layer dries. If needed, we spray another layer on that until the curtain of concrete-covered fabric is stiff enough, then we switch to troweling on additional layers, this time with chopped polypropylene fibers mixed in.

By the time we have 4 to 5 thin layers, around an inch and a half thick, the skin will withstand a blow from a sledge hammer. We often add powdered black dye to the last coat so the finished pond appears bottomless; it also enhances the colors of koi. And it all starts with one of my favorite Tools That Don’t Suck, the Tirolessa sprayer.

As water feature installers, my sons and I are used to hard, dirty, sometimes dangerous work. We enjoy what we do, whether it’s digging ponds, plumbing pumps, rolling boulders or tweaking waterfalls, but we also value anything that helps make the work easier or more fun. We’re always looking for tools, apps or gadgets that save time & effort, eliminate stress, add to our comfort on the job or are just fun to use. Often a buddy will turn us on to one. I’d like to return the favor by passing our favorite Tools That Don’t Suck along to you.

ON-THE-JOB TECH SUPPORT?

So, In the last two blogs I shared a couple of tools that I’ve found very useful, one that makes cutting non-woven fabric easier than using the typical razor knife (see TTDS #1) and one that fixes those really inconvenient plumbing breaks right alongside fittings (TTDS #2). Today I’d like to move towards the tech side, to show you a couple of tools for the smartphone that I can’t do without. (Who knew years ago we would even have PHONES on the job, much less SMART ones?) The first is an app I have found particularly useful for on-the-job estimating and record keeping called CamScanner.

When I go on an estimate I will typically sketch up what the customers and I talk about, both to clarify the bones of the design and to get down on paper everything we have spoken about. In about 10 seconds, CamScanner lets me take a picture of whatever I’ve written down, automatically crop it, enhance the picture with a variety of filters, compress the image and store as a .jpg or .pdf. I can then immediately send it to my customer via text message or email, so both of us have a record. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s free?

For about five bucks the full version offers other features that I don’t have much need for. Optical character recognition lets you scan printed material and turn it into into an editable .txt file. You can set it to upload automatically to cloud services like GoogleDrive and Dropbox. You can even fax documents, but there’s a third-party charge of $0.99 per page.

Love Handle cell phone grip

The second phone tool I now use all the time is a little gizmo my buddy Sean Bell turned me on to at a diner one day. I had my phone down on the table sitting in the crumbs, while he was one-handing his, using his thumb with the phone apparently stuck to his palm. When I asked how, he said “Let me show you my Love Handle“. Before I could jump back in horror, he flipped the phone over and revealed a little elastic strap stuck to the back of his phone case. “You just slip it over your finger and it makes one handed operation easy. I even use this to hang the phone on stuff for selfies and videos”, he explained. I was very impressed and vowed to order one immediately.

He got exasperated after asking me ten times if I liked it and bought me one a month later. Bless his soul. I absolutely love it. On my phone there’s a special finger swipe to miniaturize the keyboard, so I can make one-handed calls when necessary, but for me, the best thing about the Love Handle is I don’t drop the dang thing anymore. (I used to. Yes, all the time. Let’s just leave it at that.)

Now, especially when traveling, or late to get on a plane, or leaning over the pond to get a picture of a leak, I enjoy the security of having the phone firmly stuck to my hand, impossible to drop. I can even use CamScanner one handed now. Definitely Tools That Don’t suck. Enjoy.

About the Author:DEMI FORTUNA

Demi has been in water garden construction since 1986. As Atlantic’s Director of Product Information, if he’s not building water features, he’s writing or talking about them. If you have a design or construction question, he’s the one to ask.

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Atlantic Water Gardens

Located in Mantua, Ohio Atlantic Water Gardens is a premiere manufacturer or water feature equipment. With dealers, distributors and a dedicated sales staff covering all of North America, Atlantic is ready, willing and able to help you with your next water feature project.

Atlantic Professional Contractor of the Year

Atlantic Water Gardens is excited to announce Gerard Touhey, as the 2017 Atlantic Professional Contractor of the Year.
Gerard was honored at the First Annual Atlantic Professional Conference September 6-7, 2017 in Mantua, Ohio. Located in Easton, Pennsylvania, Water Features by Gerard has created hundreds of beautiful water features in this country and abroad for over twenty years. Gerard’s own back yard has been the inspiration for many customers who, captivated by its charm and whimsy, have joined the ranks of many happy pond owners who revere him. Gerard received the accolade from Rex McCaskill of Pond Professors, Inc., the 2016 recipient, at the closing banquet in Cleveland.
http://www.waterfeaturesbygerard.com